Cornell Expert Quotes

Cornellians weigh in on current events in the news

The Fed decision to pause its increases in interest rates was the right thing to do at this point. Whether or not they resume tightening, switch to a regime of easing, or simply do nothing will depend on the data that we get in the coming months.

Assistant professor of strategy at the School of Hotel Administration and a management and organization area faculty member in the Cornell SC Johnson College of Business.

02/20/19

Kim says:

"By comparing the professional careers and personal lives of actors from 1930 to 2005, there was no evidence of a professional curse: both male and female actors had longer and more successful careers after being nominated for or winning the Oscar compared to those never nominated.

"We did find evidence of a personal curse: only for male actors, their divorce rate increased following both nominations and wins. For female actors, their divorce rate only increased when they were married to male actors and the female wins or gets nominated. In other words, the female becomes higher status compared to the male partner.

"This suggests that male actors are more susceptible to the negative consequences of Oscar nominations/wins, perhaps because males tend to be more affected by work-related events and deviations from traditional gender roles.

"Given the changes in gender roles recently, perhaps the Hollywood myth of the Oscar curse will be different for the more recent cohort of Oscar nominees and winners."

“Millions of Americans do not have convenient access to affordable, full-time, high-quality child care. That has important consequences for both parents and children, and for society more broadly. Without access to reliable affordable childcare, parents, in particular mothers, will have difficulty working. In fact, research has shown that many women see their careers ‘stall out’ once they have children in ways that men’s careers do not. This is driven in part by the difficulty of juggling the demands of both work and child-rearing.

“Research has also shown that children, particularly those from low-income and those from rural areas, benefit a lot from the universal availability of high-quality child care experiences. Also, research from Canada has shown that universal child care policies can have unintended negative effects on child development when the program’s initial rollout does not pay close attention to the quality of care being provided. Therefore, it will be important for policymakers to ensure that any new program provides children with truly high-quality care.”

"Not only can you see what it looks like if you were on Mars from the imaging, but you can also try to imagine the feel of the moderate winds from the Northwest (over your shoulder), and the rush of a passing dust devil swirling past you.”

While being wildly creative, Karl Lagerfeld singularly understood the business of fashion, never lost sight of the fact that his designs had to appeal to the women who bought them, and this, ironically gave him immense creative freedom within the House of Chanel.

“The U.S. is one of only three industrialized countries that does not guarantee universal access to paid sick leave. Especially low-wage earners, part-time employees and employees in the hospitality and service sector typically do not have access to paid sick leave. Many have to go to work sick. Mandating sick leave enables those employees to take paid sick leave and reduces the spread of influenza-like-illnesses.”

“Fluorochemicals are widely used in a variety of products including stain-repellant clothing and fire-fighting foams. The same properties that make fluorochemicals useful for protecting clothes or extinguishing fires allow them to persist in the environment for many years. Hundreds of fluorochemicals have been detected in water resources around the world, and some have been linked to an assortment of human health issues.”

“What jumps out is the ways the report urges ‘voluntary integration’ and how it avoids taking seriously the resistance of privileged and white parents to any and all talk of meaningful integration.

“Their resistance is not new, but goes back to the era immediately preceding Brown v. Board when one of the largest civil rights marches was actually against talk of racially integrating schools and reaches to the city’s very recent past.

“The language of the report chooses to repeatedly use the term ‘diversity’ to describe its work and does not mention how entrenched racism, poverty or opportunity hoarding on the part of the wealthy are the underlying issues that allow for New York City schools to look as they do. Casting a broad net that includes disability, learning differences, all ‘races’, language and the ubiquitous ‘diverse’, means that success at the level of individual schools can leave racial and economic educational realities of New York City schools in place while claiming they are now integrated.

“As a nation, we have rarely believed that poor children of color should be educated in the same ways as are wealthy children, or actually with children who are white and wealthy. If you cannot clearly name the problem, you cannot solve it.”

“Not all experiences are equally important, some have greater impact on who we are and what we desire today. First experiences are particularly important. First kiss, first love, first Valentine’s…these all stick with us and set the stage of what we want and how we judge similar experiences. Brands or products that become nested in these experiences harbor a strong emotional connection to consumers. They allow us to travel back in time and remember who we were, and relive those positive memories.

“Sweethearts, as the candy associated with young Valentine’s party exchanges, is a product that has become culturally fused with the holiday, particularly in the U.S. It is not particularly surprising to hear the consumer uproar when the Spangler Candy Company, which purchased Necco last September, announced they will not be producing the candies this year.

“Spangler says they may restart production in 2020. This gap year can have potential positive effects for the brand in terms of getting consumers to recognize the role and importance this candy has played in their lives. Think New Coke and the way they successfully reintroduced Coca-Cola Classic in 1985 when they ‘discovered’ the strong emotional connection consumers had with their original formula.

“But stopping production this year also risks that young consumers will not have the candy to create these special bonds and memories.

“Depending on Spangler’s next moves on production and marketing, this could either be a big win for both the company and consumers, or a big loss.”

"The transition to a sustainable, low-carbon economy presents both challenges and opportunities for U.S. labor unions. Responding to the climate crisis will require major investment and a lot of work rebuilding our energy, transport and building infrastructure for the 21st century. This is a huge opportunity that many unions are excited to seize, as we see in places like New York state.

“At the same time, this transition will also majorly disrupt the U.S. economy, especially the energy sector and its workforce. We need to do what’s required to lower greenhouse gas emissions to avoid the worst impacts of climate change, and carefully consider how workers and communities will be impacted as we transition to renewables, which is necessary and ideal in the long-run to secure ecologically sustainable, high-quality and affordable power.

“Major economic transitions have not worked well for workers in the past. This means workers and their unions are understandably concerned about whether there will be sufficient planning, financial support and inclusion of impacted workers’ voices in the process of designing and planning the transition and Green New Deal."